A disgraced ex-Gwynedd Councillor who admitted fraud had asked a film company to pay him £3,000 for the hiring of Beaumaris Pier, a report has revealed.

Iwan Huws, the former chief executive of the Eryri National Park Authority and an ex-National Trust director, accepted a police caution after the fraud came to light.

Huws was the Plaid Cymru councillor for Bethel a’r Felinheli until he stood down last September, and in 2011, stood as Plaid Cymru’s Aberconwy candidate in the Welsh Assembly elections, finishing in second place.

At the time of the offence, in July 2023, he had been working as a senior maritime officer for Anglesey County Council.

The Public Services Ombudsman for Wales referred the matter to the independent Adjudication Panel for Wales (APW) and a tribunal found that he had breached Cyngor Gwynedd’s Code of Conduct.

He had accepted the conditional caution for “fraud through abuse of position” after attempting “to defraud his employer through the misuse of funds,” the APW decision report said.

The report added: “It was reasonable to conclude that the conditional caution and the misconduct of the member had brought his office as a member and his county council into disrepute.”

Huws was banned from standing as a councillor in any council in Wales for three years. Although the offence happened during his Anglesey Council employment, he was at the time a member of Cyngor Gwynedd and had held “very responsible roles within that Council,” the report said.

At the time of the investigation he was serving on Gwynedd’s Education and Economy Scrutiny and Pensions committees.

The APW report stated: “The fact that he broke the law and attempted to defraud his employer, which was itself a public authority, and tried to steal money which was due to Beaumaris Town Council and to the Isle of Anglesey County Council, meant that the offence demonstrated a lack of respect towards the public on several levels.

“The attempt to defraud took place over a number of days and does appear to include an element of premeditation in its preparation.”

Among the “undisputed facts” the decision report describes how the production company was referred to Huws on June 30, 2023, to hire Beaumaris Pier for two days. The company would pay a “total fee” to include all costs and parking.

The report said: “The Respondent [Huws] agreed a fee of £3,000 to include VAT and stated that this would cover all the costs. The Respondent asked for the payment to be made through a BACS transfer.

“On the July 10, 2023, the Respondent sent an invoice to the company by email for the cost of the hire.

“He attached a mooring receipt which included a handwritten document setting out the details of the Pier hire and his own personal bank account details as the appropriate account for receiving payment.”

It described how on July 13, 2023, the company sent a purchase order to Huws’ email address at Anglesey County Council, and on July 24, 2024, Huws sent an email demanding payment of the fee.

“Once again, the email attached a copy of the mooring receipt containing the Respondent’s own handwritten bank details. The Respondent deleted both emails dated the July 10 and 24 from his email box,” the report stated.

On July 26, 2023, the production company made enquiries to the council’s finance department, which “confirmed that the payment details were incorrect”.

The report added: “The employer had conducted an investigation that disclosed that the bank details were those of the Respondent.”

Because of “inconsistencies”, it stated that Huws was suspended and the matter referred to the police. He resigned from his post with Anglesey Council on September 15, 2023.

He was interviewed by the police and had “confessed that he had sent the handwritten invoice demanding payment, and agreed that he had attempted to defraud through the abuse of his position,” the report said.

During an interview with the Ombudsman it was stated that “he made the same admissions” and it was also noted that he “did not get any personal cash benefit as a result of his actions”.

The report said: “On December 19, 2023, the police had given the Respondent a conditional caution for the offence of fraud through misuse of position, the only condition being that he should write a letter of explanation to the Isle of Anglesey County Council, an action that he had already completed.”

The tribunal had found he was in breach of the council’s Code of Conduct, which stated that “members must not conduct themselves in a way which could reasonably be considered to bring their role or their authority into disrepute”.

The Ombudsman had said that “a member of the public could reasonably question how a member could hold such roles, having demonstrated a failure in integrity and an attempt to dishonestly obtain public funds for himself”.

It also noted Huws had “expressed his regret”. During interview with the Ombudsman, the report said Huws alleged he “did not realise that accepting a caution for fraud through misuse of position was an admission of guilt”.

However, he accepted he was guilty of the offence. “He accepted that he had made a major mistake and stated that he wanted to move on from the incident,” the report added.

It added: “He believed that by resigning when he did, that he was doing the honourable thing at the time.

“He said that the embarrassment of facing his colleagues and his guilt about what he had done had led him to co-operate with the police.”

In comments to the Ombudsman he said, in his mitigation, he had tried “to resolve the problem in his own way” and alleged that the request from the company had put him under “time constraints”.

The report said he had “responded on the same day to inform them that the sum offered would cover all the costs and he asked whether the company could make the payment by BACS”.

He had also asked whether the fee could be paid on an official receipt, otherwise it would be necessary to set up the company as a supplier which could take some time.

The usual practice would be to raise an official purchase order through the finance department, which would send an invoice to the company.

He had not followed the correct procedures due to it taking time and because he “wanted to be helpful” in expediting the process for the company. He had now acknowledged that this “was a mistake”.

It had been explained that the relevant fee rates would be about £900 for a full day to include VAT so that the fee for two days would be £1,800. When asked whether the remaining £1,200 was to pay for the parking, the report said, he said: “I’m not sure what the charges are that Beaumaris Town Council charge for parking in that area.

“My intention was to pay a proportion to the Town Council after the weekend but after the weekend everything accelerated.”

Huws had subsequently received a telephone call from the company who were unhappy that the town council had not been consulted about the parking prior to their arrival.

He stated that once he heard about the company’s dissatisfaction, he decided to pay half the fee to the town council to reimburse the cost of parking.

“To do that, he decided to send the mooring receipt with his own bank details, with the intention of keeping half the payment for himself and giving the other half to the town council,” it said.

The report noted that he had “admitted to the police that it was an attempt to defraud in a public office and that he had used an old receipt book to facilitate this”.

The report said: “He admitted that he had sent the handwritten invoice to the company with the details of his own personal bank account and that he had not presented a purchase order to the finance department until July 26, 2023.

“The member admitted that he had deleted the email messaged dated July 10 and 24, 2023.

“He also confirmed that despite the purchase order from the company (which would have been the correct process to follow) on the 13 July 2023, he sent a further email on the July 24 to the company demanding payment to his own personal bank account.”

He had said that he had “not been arrested by the police and that he had not obtained any financial gain through his actions” and said that he didn’t have any financial motives for the fraud and that he had never done anything like that previously.

“He referred to problems in his personal life but he could not provide a specific reason why he acted as he did, other than it being an attempt to resolve the issue of keeping the Beaumaris Town Council happy and assisting the film company,” the report said.